It's
been a tough few weeks of competitions, but it has been good preparation for
the challenges of next week's World Cup
races in Guildford. After BUSA we went straight in to the two consecutive BEOC
weekends, first the Sprint and Middle, then the Long and Relay. All of them
were fast and furious races in one way or another, from the asphalt and cropped
grass of Sandhurst to the open dunes of Penhale. Although several top names
were missing in the men's class I was very happy to come away with 2 individual
wins in the Middle and Long, while Jenny and I were both part of the winning
teams in the Relay for SYO (Jenny, Jenny Peel, Helen Winskill) and ShUOC (Andrew
Middleditch, Matt crane, Oli) respectively. The Sprint and Middle weekend in particular provided some great training for the World Cups, with a (particularly simple) sprint qualifier and final around the grounds of the military camp in Sandhurst. Both Jenny and I finishes 3rd, Jenny just under 1 minute down on Heather Monro and myself around 30 seconds behind a speedy (but controversially reinstated) Nick Barrable. The middle distance caught many out with several areas of low visibility, but Heather was once again the best in the women's race with Jenny finishing in 7th. Behind me, Graham Gristwood rounded off a superb weekend with another 2nd place earning himself a spot in the World Cup team.
Penhale provided a different challenge, not least of all interpreting the unusual map. It felt strange to be orienteering using only the contours after weeks of training and racing on vegetation and compass bearings, but after a very shaky start I ran a very clean race to take a narrow victory from Mark Nixon, who ran a great race. Jenny suffered from some big mistakes and finished in 5th behind local girl Helen Winskill. The relays
saw
Saturday's sunshine replaced by driving rain which marred what would otherwise
have been a great race for the spectators. I was left with little to do on last
leg for ShUOC in the Men's race after a strong start from Andrew Middleditch
and a storming 2nd leg from Matt Crane, who obliterated the rest of the field.
Meanwhile Jenny ran well on first leg with Jenny James and Helen Winskill bringing
the team in 1st. Great results for the Sheffield teams!